Dear White People, a viewing guide (sort of)

as we are anticipating the theatrical release of Dear White People, i thought that it would be nice to have some things fresh in our minds about the issues that will most likely be explored the film. so, here is my own little open letter filled with things that i've been wanting to say for while now. hopefully, it will be obvious that i am not addressing all white people or every person who identifies as white. this is based on my personal experience of discussing race/racism with people who are unable to (or refuse to) grasp certain concepts, and those people happened to be white. so...

dear white people (or, to whom it may concern),

let's have an honest discussion about racism. yes, i know, it seems like we talk about racism all the time, but are you really listening? it feels like you're not really trying to understand. it seems like you're holding on very tightly to those same ideas and beliefs that you've had for a long time now, and that's the reason that we keep ending up back here, having this same conversation about how it feels when you ignore me, silence me, stereotype me. i keep trying to tell you that there is this thing called institutional racism. i give you examples of racial microaggressions which i have personally experienced. i speak the names of the unarmed black men who have been gunned down by law enforcement or civilians for simply existing in their black bodies in public spaces and because they "looked/seemed" suspicious or dangerous. i quote the numbers on the (pre)school to prison pipeline, the prison industrial complex, and the insidious ways in which capitalism works to ensure racial/class disparities. i provide you with an abundance of evidence, and still you refuse to acknowledge that these things and my experiences are valid because "not all white people" are racist, or because your other black friend/acquaintance had a different version of the same story, or because rap music is violent, or because you spent three months building a school in Africa. 

listen, none of these responses are valid or well-constructed arguments to contradict what i've presented to you. so, you can stop using those now. do not tell me that racism no longer exists because Oprah is rich, Barack Obama is a two-term U.S. president, and white people like Beyonce', too. do not tell me to just accept the fact that racism will always exist in our world. accepting an institution as being all-powerful and inescapable discourages any critical thinking and social progress. do not tell me not to take racism personally. racism is personal. do not tell me that you "don't see color" or that "there's only one race and it's the human race". none of these things are productive. please, do me the favor of listening to me for a moment and actually trying to understand my words as i dictate a few of my concerns here:

we should go ahead and get the "n-word" part of this discussion out of the way now, even though we've talked about it so many times before. no, you may not say the n-word. yes, it is because you are white. no, it is not "unfair" or "racist" that you are not allowed to say it, though white privilege might have you believe that something is being taken away from you because others have the right to something that you do not. you should understand that the history that is attached to that word is a painful one. it is true that some black people may choose to include it in their vocabulary as slang or as an attempt to reclaim the word from its racist underpinnings and re-operationalize it as a term of endearment or otherwise. you may encounter the word frequently in music and movies. you may see it on crude t-shirts. you may even hear it in your presence among a group of friends or acquaintances. in none of these scenarios is it acceptable for you to say "nigger" or "nigga(h)", even as a joke or as a song lyric. in the same way that you should never call an Asian person a "chink" or a Mexican person a "wetback", you should never utter a racial slur for black people around black people. that's just good manners.

no, you are not being oppressed or personally attacked when someone calls you out on your privilege. white privilege does exist and it does not mean that all white people are racist. it simply means that, historically, white people have benefited socially, economically, and otherwise through the colonization, imperialistic rule, enslavement, oppression, etc. of people of other races, and those benefits continue today, even if they are not as apparent to you as they are to people who are sometimes negatively affected by it. whiteness is what we are critical of. not white people. 

you see, identities (racial and otherwise) do not pre-exist social institutions. rather, these categories are socially constructed and prescribed value, and as we name these categories, we attach significance to them. we define them through a series of exclusions, over and against other identities. whiteness is an a idea; a system of beliefs about the social value of a certain group of people. it is a property that only certain people can lay claim to, and it comes with privileges and socially granted permissions. if discussions about race and confronting the ways in which whiteness is privileged make you uncomfortable, then you should have those discussions more often and be more open-minded to perspectives that are not your own.

your token(?) black friend is not the ambassador of all black people. nor am i. it doesn't matter if you grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood or went to a predominantly black school. you cannot use one person or a group of people as the basis for your beliefs about the behavior(s) and experience(s) of an entire race. "not all white people" act/think the same, as you sometimes like to point out. similarly, not all black people act/think the same. we adopt the colloquialisms, behaviors, and ideologies of the environments in which we exist and the communities that we are a part of. that is human nature. here, i'd like to say that, at some point, we should all stop being products of our environment and become products of knowledge. 

speaking of the "not all white people" argument, do not interrupt or co-opt a discussion about institutional racism with this line of logic. even if you as an individual are not a racist or a white supremacist, that does not negate the fact that racist and supremacist ideals still exist and they still affect our lives. just because you personally have not experienced or witnessed it, does not mean that you get to deny the legitimacy of another's experience(s). being "colorblind" is not helpful either. just because you ignore race, even if your intentions are good, that does not mean that racism does not still exist, or that you don't participate in subtle, subconscious, every day racism (see: microaggressions). we should all be aware of race and we should actively make an effort to combat racism.

no, we don't blame you personally for slavery, but we will hold you accountable for your own words and actions. i know what you're going to say: white bodies have also been enslaved throughout history. we know. we also know that the enslavement of black bodies left a legacy of systemic and systematic racism in ways that other forms of slavery have not; Jim Crow laws, government sanctioned violence(s) and discrimination, disenfranchisement, blackface minstrelsy, etc. the civil rights movement did not end in 1968. the Voting Rights Act was signed only 49 years ago (in the words of Louis C.K., "there are three guys in my building who are older than American democracy!") and many are still facing voting restrictions. the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling was only sixty years ago. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not eradicate racist ideologies, nor did the election and inauguration of President Obama. we do not live in a post racial society. black people are still being lynched. acknowledging that the enslavement of black bodies has left a legacy of racism is not useless complaining and it does not delegitimate the history of enslavement of white bodies. all slavery is horrible. in no way is anyone saying that white slaves didn't also suffer violence. the point is that, regardless of your history, as a white person in this world, your life is valued more than the lives of people of color. you should be aware of the ways in which people of color are devalued in everyday situations and how it compares your own experience in this world.

lastly, if a person of color informs you that something you did or said is racially insensitive or offensive to them, do not tell them that they are overreacting or being hypersensitive. racism hurts. if you've done or said something offensive, you should 1) apologize, 2) politely make an attempt to understand why it is offensive, 3) listen to what they have to say with an open mind and respect the legitimacy of their experience(s), 4) never do/say it again, and 5) hold other people accountable if you see/hear them commit this same offense in another space. this is how you can help to actively combat racism.

racism isn't a tangible thing that sits on a shelf collecting dust until someone decides to take it down and weaponize it. it is an entity; ever living and breathing, and at its heart is hatred and fear. it may not always manifest in ways which are easily recognizable to you, but the destruction that it leaves in its wake is evident in the lives and experiences of many. though it can be a ruthless force, racism is not impenetrable. it can be confronted and it can be diminished. the responsibility belongs to all of us to engage with it, and we can have constructive discussions by first acknowledging the fact that it exists and the (subconscious) ways in which we participate in it. and so, here is where i end my rant. thanks for listening. that's all for now.

all my love.